As far as we were able, and could find our way, we went through every
room of the palace, all round the four sides. From the first floor
upwards it is entirely roofless. In some of the chambers there is an
accumulation of soil, and a goodly crop of grass; in others there is
still a flooring of flags or brick tiles, though damp and moss-grown, and
with weeds sprouting between the crevices. Grass and weeds, indeed, have
found soil enough to flourish in, even on the highest ranges of the
walls, though at a dizzy height above the ground; and it was like an old
and trite touch of romance, to see how the weeds sprouted on the many
hearth-stones and aspired under the chimney-flues, as if in emulation of
the long-extinguished flame. It was very mournful, very beautiful, very
delightful, too, to see how Nature takes back the palace, now that kings
have done with it, and adopts it as a part of her great garden.
On one side of the quadrangle we found the roofless chamber where Mary,
Queen of Scots, was born, and in the same range the bedchamber that was
occupied by several of the Scottish Jameses; and in one corner of the
latter apartment there is a narrow, winding staircase, down which I
groped, expecting to find a door, either into the enclosed quadrangle or
to the outside of the palace.
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